


The Tree of Life

by Amuly



Series: Eleusian Mysteries [2]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Catholicism, Islam, Judaism, Kabbala, M/M, Middle Ages, Muslim Character, Old Married Couple, Pre-Canon, Religion, Theology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:21:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27832186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amuly/pseuds/Amuly
Summary: When Nicolo becomes immortal, he knows there must be a reason behind it. So he begins a search through time and space to find his answers. Yusuf tags along with him, because like it or not, their fates are clearly intwined. (and then, eventually, they fall in love, so that’s a good reason too).Part II: Nicolo starts his search for answers close to home: the Gnostic Christians. But then, as he remains unsatisfied, he starts seeking further and further afield, moving from there to the Brethren of Purity in Basra, and from there to Kabbalist Jews in Spain. Yusuf already has all the answer he needs in Nicolo, and so joins him in his journey without hesitation. (Part 2 of 3)
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Eleusian Mysteries [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2019172
Comments: 9
Kudos: 72





	The Tree of Life

There was a man in the marketplace next to their home that Yusuf chatted with every morning. They two were some distant neighbors, somehow, back from the part of the Maghreb where Yusuf grew up. It worried Nicolo, every day, to see them speak so quickly and animatedly in the dialect of Yusuf’s youth. One day, that dialect would be old-fashioned, ancient, and then gone. One day it would set him apart as an outsider, not as a neighbor.

But one day wasn’t yet to pass. They had only been in Alexandria for a year, and it had only been seventeen since their first death in 1099 (or 493, as Yusuf was fond of correcting Nicolo). They should be middle-aged men now, with families and children to worry about getting apprenticeships and marriages (they should be dead, now, rotting corpses beneath a nondescript field that new Crusaders washed over even to this day). But that wasn’t so old, compared to how they looked. Their memories and reference-points were still relevant and did not yet cast them as interlopers.

Yusuf came away from the marketplace with his arms laden with groceries, and two delicately wrapped packages in his palm. Nicolo had been watching from their window as he drank and let the morning breeze from the harbor cool their rooms. He set down his cup on their table and took the stairs two at a time to meet Yusuf at their doorstep.

“Let me,” Nicolo told him as he unburdened Yusuf from at least half of his packages. Yusuf bussed a kiss across his cheek as they started up the clay brick stairs together.

“I have something for you,” Yusuf called up after him.

“Yes, I see,” Nicolo said back, smiling where Yusuf couldn’t see it. He heard Yusuf tsk irritably behind him.

“Not dinner,” Yusuf started to explain.

“In your hand.” Nicolo set down the groceries on their table, mindful of his tea, and turned to Yusuf with a smile. “I could see it.”

Yusuf grinned as he dropped the rest of his groceries unceremoniously around him.

“Were you spying on me?”

“No.”

“You were.”

Nicolo narrowed his eyes, though he could hardly keep his expression as dour as all that. “If I were spying on you I would be a very bad spy: telling you without any interrogation.”

“I could still _interrogate_ you…” Yusuf sidled up to him, wrapping his arms low around Nicolo’s waist and bending his knees a little to bring their groins in line. Nicolo leaned in for a kiss, but then, while Yusuf was distracted, he reached behind himself and tugged the package from Yusuf’s fist.

“Hey!” Yusuf whined, likely more put-out that he wasn’t getting a leisurely kiss right now than he was that Nicolo had stolen from him.

“What did you get us?” Nicolo asked even as he opened the first small package.

“Ah, a delicacy, Muhammad tells me. From back East. Baklava, the Byzantines call it.”

“No, this is from the Greeks,” Nicolo said. It was baklava, yes. He’d heard this before, when they were traveling through Greece towards the Holy Land. Had not tried any at the time, but the men talked about the Greek dessert.

Yusuf frowned. “Muhammad says it’s Byzantine.”

“They have this in Greece,” Nicolo told him with a shrug.

“They must have stolen it.”

Nicolo regarded Yusuf steadily. “There is not much the Greeks need steal. Having invented most everything themselves.”

Yusuf smirked meanly. “Trust a Roman to know all about stealing from the Greeks.”

“I am _not_ Roman,” Nicolo grumbled.

“Don’t let your Pope here you say that.” Yusuf popped a piece of baklava into his mouth even through his smile. Then he hummed, eyes widening in surprise. “Oh. This is lovely.”

It _was_ lovely. And it was even lovelier tasting it off Yusuf’s lips, Yusuf’s tongue. They lost a bit of the morning after that, Nicolo’s drink growing cold on their table. But what was the use of undying if they didn’t have time to indulge themselves when they wished, to lengthen the moments spent with the ones they loved, because business would still be there for them, because there would be many, many more days to see to it.

When the sun was closer to its zenith than its dawn Nicolo rolled out of their bed and began to re-dress himself for his day. Yusuf groaned as he stretched, naked, on top of their soiled sheets. Nicolo let his eyes rove Yusuf’s beautiful form, but that did not stop his hands from pulling on a tunic and buckling his belt. Yusuf rolled on his side, flaccid penis settling on his thigh, holding his head up with one head as he watched Nicolo watch him.

“You leave me to prepare your meals while you go off searching for your mysterious monks?”

Nicolo snorted. “They call themselves ‘priests,’ these Gnostic cultists. Not ‘monks.’”

“And _you_ call them ‘cultists.’ Which I think means their ideas: not so good.”

Nicolo sighed. It was true that he hadn’t yet found the answers he was looking for in Alexandria. But that didn’t mean he _wouldn’t_. Perhaps it would just take some more time, and a ‘priest’ willing to initiate Nicolo into the sacred mysteries.

And, of course, time was a commodity of which they had plenty.

Nicolo smiled as he bent down to kiss Yusuf once more. Yusuf, of course, pulled him down onto the bed, and one kiss turned into a languid series of kisses, one blending into the next as their tongues explored each other’s mouths.

But before his body came to believe he would be _staying_ in the bed, Nicolo pushed himself back up. Yusuf pouted, but Nicolo rewarded him with a kiss to the top of his head, and a caress to his neck. This appeased Yusuf for the moment and he melted into their bed with a sigh.

“I will see you tonight,” Nicolo promised him, as he always did, and sometimes managed to keep.

“Ma'aasalaama,” Yusuf called after him.

“’salam,” Nicolo called back over his shoulder.

The streets were hot and busy, now that the morning was nearly at its peak. Nicolo navigated the dusty streets with only the smallest twinge of homesickness for the humid, verdant greens of his homeland. At least he had picked up the language, ever-so-slowly, thanks to Yusuf’s patient tutelage (and motivation…). And now, Nicolo could go anywhere in the great Fatimid Caliphate and understand and make himself understood, which was a sight better than how he’d started his travels. Still, as much as he’d grown to appreciate the sound of Yusuf’s native tongue (especially when spoken so melodically by his lover himself), Nicolo missed the vowels and rhyme of his own language, the full, smooth consonants.

Still: it wasn’t like he’d find the answers he sought any closer to home. Everyone knew that the closer you were to Rome, the further you were from Christ. Those men who held the secret knowledge of Christ and the resurrection, of those saints and great ancestors who had Walked With The Lord And Then Were Not, they would not be anywhere near Rome, or on the Roman peninsula. And so, Nicolo’s journey had led them here: to Alexandria, across the sea from everything Nicolo called home.

The fabled library might be gone, but Alexandria still played host to beautiful collections that even foreigners like Nicolo could gain access to: once he proved his worthiness. Nicolo spent the rest of the morning in one such library, trying to track down references he’d spent months cobbling together.

_Enoch walked with God… 365 years… Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him._

_…behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, which parted them both asunder… Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven… ‘My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen…’ …saw him no more…_

_…having completed the course of her Earthly life, Mary was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory…_

_…then shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory…_

_…Arise, O Lord, into thy resting place: thou and the ark, which thou hast sanctified…_

_“If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?...” …rumor spread among the believers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said…”_

When the call for salat al-zuhr sounded through the city, Nicolo returned his books and left the library. The only ones in the streets were non-Muslims, but Alexandria certainly still bustled with life. Nicolo bought a piece of fruit from what must have been a non-Muslim vendor, for she was not at prayer with the rest, as he walked slowly through the city.

He had read and re-read the scriptures for the last year since coming to Alexandria, as well as a number of unauthorized books he had found tucked away here and there. Amongst them was an entire book purportedly written by Enoch (laughable, and highly suspect, considering it read all-too-similarly to John’s Revelation), and another supposedly written by Mary, Queen of the Universe (blasphemous and terrifying to behold, merely because of the thought that someone would pretend to be the Holy Mother and speak for her).

There were references to resurrection after death aplenty, of course. There were even references to undying individuals. But these stories seemed to have no rhyme or reason. Enoch, Elijah, Mary, the disciple undying: what did they have in common? What purpose did their undying serve? And for all of them, every one save the undying disciple, their undeath was mentioned only at the moment of ascension. Never before: there was no mention of their time on _Earth_ as an undying one; only of their ascension into heaven.

But Yusuf and Nicolo had not ascended into heaven. They had not even descended into hell. And Nicolo was too good a Christian to presume that anything of Jesus’ story related to _their_ condition. That was unthinkable.

“Yallah, yallah!”

Scuffling, shouting.

“Please!”

The soft sound of flesh connecting with flesh, followed by a cry of pain. Nicolo looked around, dropping his piece of fruit as he cast about for the source of the commotion.

There, down an alley! Nicolo jogged to a stop in front of it, nearly missing the narrow enclave between buildings. Between washing hanging on lines to dry and garbage thrown out into the streets, Nicolo was able to get a glimpse of three men. No, wait: four. The fourth man was cowering on the ground, back pressed against a wall. Nicolo looked between the men, assessing them for weapons. Even if he could not die, being harmed hurt, and if he was wounded grievously enough he could die for a time and be of no use to the man he was trying to save. They had the knives they had been using to threaten the poor man, but none of them had a sword at his hip. That was good. That could make this easier. Taking one steadying breath, Nicolo ducked into the alley.

“Go,” Nicolo tried first. “Leave this man in peace.”

The men looked at each other. Then they laughed. Nicolo shifted his stance, checking his traction on the ground, sliding forward onto the balls of his feet. Three men. It might be hard, but he should be able to manage.

One knife from Nicolo’s belt: thrown at the first man, connecting solidly in his breast. The next, thrown to the man next to him, but missing the mark, scraping his arm and then clattering against the stone wall behind him. Nicolo was already moving through it, third (and last) knife in his hand as he grabbed at the third man, trying to knock the knife from his hand even as Nicolo aimed a blow at his neck. The second man, the one he’d failed to injure seriously, came up behind Nicolo and stabbed him in the back. Nicolo threw his elbow into the man’s face, blinding him temporarily. Thank God the man was taller than Nicolo: he had stabbed Nicolo high in the back, where Nicolo could reach easily. Kicking the third man away from him, Nicolo turned and jabbed his knife into the second man’s neck while he was still reeling from the blow to his face.

“Hilal!” The first man was shouting, pulling the knife from his chest. He wheezed worryingly as he dropped the knife, blood flowing freely from his breast. He clasped one hand over the wound in a probably futile attempt to staunch the blood flow. “Hilal! Yallah!”

It was the third man, apparently, who was named Hilal, because he limped for the first man. The second was drowning in his own blood flowing from his neck. His knees gave, then the rest of him. He was down, gurgling in the alleyway. Hilal and the first man were already gone, running out into the street. Nicolo let them leave, taking no pleasure in killing for the sake of killing.

“Are you alright?”

“Δόξα τω θεώ,” the man said. He crossed himself then clasped his hands before him. A small knotted rope hung down between his fingers—a prayer rope; Nicolo knew the shape well. Nicolo reached forward to help the man up and spoke to him in kind:

“Ειρήνη σε σας. Can I do anything to help?”

The man—Nicolo was beginning to suspect he was a priest, but could not be certain, just yet—wiped at his face and smiled shakily up at Nicolo.

“I just need to sit, for a moment. Have a drink, some bread…”

“Let me buy us some,” Nicolo offered without hesitation. He pressed a hand to his chest and inclined his head. “Nicolo di Genoa.”

The man smiled, reaching up to touch his chest and incline his head similarly.

“Isaac of Samaria.”

Nicolo’s lips quirked. “A Samaritan?”

Isaac smiled ruefully back, catching onto Nicolo’s irony. “Yes. And yet today, it seems you were the good neighbor, yes?”

They ate on the steps of a library, sharing a skin of wine between them as well as fresh bread and a melon they ate down to the rind.

“You are far from home for a Genovese priest,” Isaac observed.

Nicolo’s lips curled up as he took a sip from the wine flask.

“I am on a pilgrimage, of sorts,” Nicolo explained. He nodded at the library behind them. “I am looking for answers.”

The Samaritan laughed. “Answers you could not find in Genoa? In Rome?”

Nicolo snorted. “No. The answers I seek…” Of course Nicolo would never reveal the true nature of his search, or its origin. But he was looking for holy men in Alexandria, and he had found one. He would get no further if he was too circumspect. “They are more mystical in nature than Rome is willing to indulge, I think.” The Samaritan’s expression did not change. Nicolo passed the wineskin back to him, watching him carefully. “I had hoped to find a Gnostic priest that might aid me in my quest. But I’m beginning to think the sect has died out.”

Isaac raised the wineskin to his mouth, but his eyes never left Nicolo’s.

Nicolo smiled. Ah. God’s mysterious ways of working, and all that.

That night, Nicolo and Yusuf stole out together into the desert beyond Alexandria’s walls, on a horse they rented from a neighbor. They rode for an hour, two, before their dark-adjusted eyes caught the faint glow of a fire in the distance.

“There,” Nicolo pointed, tapping at Yusuf’s shoulder. He steered the horse towards the flickering light of Gnostic priests plying their secrets.

Five years later Nicolo woke up and laid his chin on Yusuf’s chest. Slowly Yusuf stirred beneath him, sunlight streaming into their bedroom and catching the strands of brown and red in his beard and beautiful hair. Nicolo sifted his fingers through Yusuf’s hair as Yusuf smiled at him in the morning light, watching Nicolo watch him.

“These priests: I think I have learned all I will learn from them.”

Yusuf reached up and captured Nicolo’s hand, bringing it to his lips to kiss.

“So you are fluent in Hebrew now?”

Nicolo scowled and pulled his hand away from Yusuf’s lips. Yusuf laughed softly: at Nicolo’s expense, of course, and the expense of Nicolo’s continuing struggle with languages. Where Yusuf absorbed languages like breathing, for Nicolo it was like breathing… rocks. Painful, and bumpy, and even if they found their way in there they certainly didn’t seem to want to _stay_.

“To be undying…” Nicolo sighed. “To be undying and remain upon this Earth: it is to forever be separate from God’s loving presence. No one who did not die was separated from heaven. Enoch, Elijah, Holy Mary Queen of the Universe: they all were brought into the presence of the Lord. There is only one person who died and then came back-”

“Two,” Yusuf pointed out. “Lazarus, yes?”

Nicolo nodded. “Ah. Yes. Still.”

“So, what?” Yusuf asked gently. “Are you afraid we are cleaved forever from your God?”

Nicolo closed his eyes against the question. Turned his face, pressed it into Yusuf’s chest, where perhaps he could hide his tears. Of course, there was no hiding anything from Yusuf, whose hand came up to stroke at Nicolo’s hair as he composed himself. When he was ready, he turned to rest his cheek on Yusuf’s breast.

“I cannot accept that our gift is a curse.”

“Nothing that brought us together could be a curse,” Yusuf agreed. Nicolo opened his eyes and met Yusuf’s, burning with certainty.

“No,” Nicolo agreed. “No. This is not a curse. We are not excluded from the Kingdom of God for eternity. Andromache herself told us: this will end, one day. Our judgement is still ahead of us; it is merely delayed.”

“So then do you accept that it is God’s will?”

“I never denied it was God’s will,” Nicolo protested. His brows drew together. “But I must know what we are to do. What is the purpose. How we are supposed to serve Him, in what way, towards what purpose. There is…” he closed his eyes, stretched his hand out before him, in the air above their heads. “There is a map, in the distance. So far, I cannot see its shapes. But so large, there is no mistaking that it is there. If I could just _read_ it…”

“Nicolo, open your eyes.”

Obediently Nicolo opened them. Only to be nose-to-palm with Yusuf’s hand, held so close to his right eye he couldn’t make out more than a brown blur. Nicolo lifted his head from Yusuf’s chest so he could peer over the hand and down at Yusuf’s smiling face.

“Yusuf, mi amor-”

“Ah, but, listen! Perhaps it is not that you cannot see the plan because it is so far away, but because it is too close.”

Nicolo’s eyes flickered down to Yusuf’s palm, then back up to his eyes.

“Close?”

“You started looking for answers close to home: priests from your own church, fellow Christians.”

“Gnostics-” Nicolo started, but Yusuf cut him off.

“-believe Christ is Lord and are most certainly close enough to Christians for you to think they would have answers because you still think of _your_ religion as the right one. But now, perhaps: perhaps the answer will become clearer with a little distance. Stray further from home.”

Ah. Nicolo pushed himself up, climbing on top of Yusuf’s warm, pliable body. Yusuf’s eyebrows jumped invitingly as his hands automatically settled on Nicolo’s hips. The blankets pooled by their knees, slipping from their bodies so there was nothing between them as Nicolo settled himself against Yusuf’s soft penis.

“And where, exactly, would you suggest I begin my search farther from home?”

Yusuf winked. “I admit: perhaps I have some ideas.”

* * *

Basra was hot. Basra was always, always hot.

Nicolo understood, now, why Yusuf and his ilk wore such flowing clothing. Even the robes made sense given the desert sands and heat. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever feel quite comfortable in the skirts, but they were a sight better suited to the climate than the trousers and tunics he arrived in.

The wind whipped his robes around him, sand stirring up and stinging his eyes. Nicolo grumbled and adjusted his headdress, trying to remember how Yusuf styled it so effortlessly to keep the sand from his face. This was not Yusuf’s homeland, but nonetheless, these were his people. Or close enough, despite Yusuf’s whining about how this or that custom or food or drink was _slightly_ different from how his mother had done things, more than a quarter-century past.

Nicolo was stirred from his thoughts by the sand in his eyes, on his face. Even his _cheeks_ stung from the force of the sand. Nicolo stopped, adjusting his robes again, shifting the scrolls he was carrying from one arm to the other. He had been on his way to return his copies of the _Timeaus_ to the library and have a discussion with Abul, or Taqi if Abul wasn’t around, about this “demiurge” Plato conjured up. The Brethren here in Basra seemed to agree with the ancient Greek philosopher’s concept of “World Soul,” or something like it, but Abul always was happy to enlighten Nicolo as to the subtleties of the Brethren’s-

“Fuck!” Nicolo cursed, pressing his hands over his eyes. The wind wasn’t letting up, and it was like he couldn’t even see. Nicolo blinked and tried to peer out from under his hand. In actuality: he _couldn’t_ see. The sand was so thick, the winds so vicious, the world around him seemed covered in a dark, rust-colored fog. Nicolo wrapped his headdress over his mouth, coughing dust from his lungs. What was this? Was this a storm? Why wasn’t it stopping?

Could he die, out here in the sands?

Nicolo shook himself. He had left his and Yusuf’s house mere minutes before. If this _was_ a storm, then he should turn around and head back home. Wait it out there until he could continue out safely again. Carefully Nicolo turned himself around on the path and started back the direction from which he came.

It was harder going than it had been walking out. What had just been a five-minute walk now threatened to take ten, twenty minutes, an hour. As the sky darkened even more, the bright morning became like dusk, and the sun soon disappeared entirely behind the thick sand in the sky. Nicolo coughed into his headdress and squinted before him, feet shuffling forward on what he could only hope was still the same path he had just walked. Sand was sifting before him, miniature dunes rising and falling in seconds, forming and reforming the landscape before his feet. He could still feel the solid, compact path beneath his sandals, but for how long that would remain to be true, Nicolo feared to wonder.

A sound, to his right. Keeping his feet firmly planted in the direction of his and Yusuf’s home, Nicolo turned his head, trying to listen through the howling winds. As loud as the winds were, every other sound around him felt muted. Where there had been birdsong and the distant babel of the marketplace, now there was only wind, and sand. Nicolo stood and listened, eyes practically useless in the hellish landscape that he now found himself in.

There! Again! Something separate from the howling wind and screaming sands. A… A voice. A cry.

It was nearly impossible to pinpoint where the voice was coming from.

“ _Hello_?!” Nicolo shouted. “ _Is somebody out there?!_ ”

Faint, faint. Barely distinct from the winds, but “ _Help_!” whirled through the skies, reached Nicolo’s ears. He cursed, glancing back the way his feet were pointing, towards his and Yusuf’s home.

If he left the path, he wasn’t sure he’d find his way back. He was not afraid for himself, of course, but for the safety of whoever found themselves stuck out in this storm.

He had to keep his direction in mind. Carefully, Nicolo turned exactly one quarter turn to the right, then stepped off the path.

“ _Hello_?!” He shouted again. “ _If you are out there, please!_ ”

He counted his steps as he walked. A dozen paces from the path. Two dozen. Then, closer, by a miracle: “ _Help! Please!_ ”

To his right still more, and further along. Nicolo considered his options. Perpendicular lines would be safest: if he started trying to bisect the perpendicular, he was sure to get lost. So then: keep moving straight out, a quarter turn from his road. Then another quarter turn to reach the voice.

A shadow at his left. Nicolo cursed the distraction, planted his feet again, even as he turned his head.

“ _Hello? Who’s there?_ ”

“Nicolo!”

“Yusuf!”

In his excitement Nicolo nearly lifted his feet. But in a herculean display of self-control he stayed them, instead reaching out with one arm even as he kept his body facing forward. Yusuf’s form solidified out of the sands, a shadow one second and the man itself the next, headdress artfully folded around his face so only the smallest slit for his eyes remained uncovered. Nicolo pulled him into his chest one-handed, and Yusuf went, grabbing for his face, pressing their bodies together.

“We must get inside,” Yusuf explained, having to shout to be heard even with them as close as two people could be. “We could suffocate! The sands could drown us!”

“There is a voice!” Nicolo shouted back. He pointed forty-five degrees off to his right. “I am counting my steps! The road is two-dozen paces behind me. Help me!”

“ _Help! Somebody! Please!_ ”

The voice again, through the sands. Yusuf’s head lifted, turning to the voice. So he heard it, too. It was not just Nicolo gone mad and hearing something in the swirling sands.

Yusuf turned back to Nicolo, but only to help him wrap his headdress to block the sand from his nose and mouth. “ _You lead_ ,” Yusuf shouted in his ear. “ _I will follow!_ ”

They took off together: Yusuf clinging to Nicolo’s robes, Nicolo shuffling forward step by careful step. Another two-dozen paces, more plaintive cries of “ _Please! We’re scared! Help!_ ” that sounded closer, inches closer, closer.

Sweat poured down Nicolo’s body inside his robes. The effort of keeping the count, of moving and even merely _breathing_ in this terrible hell on earth was exhausting, even as they covered a distance that was surely shorter than the marketplace was wide. Nicolo shuffled to a stop, wanting to wipe his brow but unwilling to risk displacing the expertly folded cloth that protected his sand-burned cheeks that were only now healing. Yusuf stopped behind him, placed his hand on Nicolo’s waist.

“ _Hello?!_ ” Nicolo shouted again, then listened.

To his right. What might be as close to _directly_ to his right as he could manage. Crying, pleading. Nicolo took a shallow breath, feeling dust coat his throat even through the fabric folds which covered his mouth and nose.

“ _Forty-five paces to the right of the path,_ ” Nicolo shouted back at Yusuf. Then he turned, another quarter-turn, to his right. He started counting again as Yusuf followed behind him, one hand clasped to his robes.

It was only another twenty paces before a shadow came into view. Two. Nicolo forced himself to keep count, to stay exactly facing forward, not turning to the shadows. Their lives may rely on Nicolo’s seeming coldness right now. _Twenty-five, twenty-six_ …

The skies were clearing. Nicolo glanced up, breathing a sigh of relief. Was it over…?

“ _Sand dune_!” Yusuf shouted in his ear. “ _They’ve taken shelter behind a sand dune_.”

That’s what it was. The storm still raged around them, but in this small haven the thundering, blinding sands died down to a mere earthly gale rather than a tempest.

Children. A little girl and even littler boy. Brother and sister, perhaps. Younger than ten, younger than seven, even: almost definitely. Nicolo’s feet wavered in their resolution. His heart ached.

Yusuf, knowing Nicolo’s mind as well as he knew his own, let go of Nicolo’s robes and rushed over to the children, pulling them into him.

“ _'ana huna. 'ant baman alan,_ little ones. Hush, hush.” Yusuf’s eyes met Nicolo’s through the small slit in their robes.

Nicolo looked up at the sand dune that the children were crouched behind. It was big, solid. Not something even this terrible storm could shift too quickly. Feet planted, Nicolo glanced back over his shoulder. Twenty-six steps back, forty-five paces left, and he would hit the path. Count his feet back to their home… If he could _find_ their home. Yusuf—he had found Yusuf off the path. Had Yusuf lost the path, or had Nicolo?

“ _Stay here_ ,” Nicolo shouted to Yusuf. “ _Keep them safe_.”

“ _Adhhab mae Allah,_ ” Yusuf shouted back. His arms were wrapped tight around the children, his eyes fixed on Nicolo. “ _Habibta._ Be safe. Come back to me.”

“ _Salaam_.”

“ _Salaam. For a short while_.” Yusuf shouted it like an order. Nicolo knew that’s exactly what it was.

Nicolo turned around, turned his back on Yusuf and the children. One of them, the littlest one, was crying. Yusuf started to shush him, to hum lullabies. _One, two, three_ … in less than ten paces Nicolo lost the sound of Yusuf’s voice in the screaming sandstorm. _Eleven, twelve_ …

A noise, through the sand. Nicolo stopped, started to turn his head towards it-

Black. Nothing.

Nicolo woke up gasping sand into scarred lungs.

His eyes burned, he was blind, he couldn’t breathe. Frantically Nicolo scrambled to push himself upright in the shifting sands. His hands sunk into the ground before he found purchase. He was buried up to his knees in it. Nicolo gasped, swallowed a mouthful of sand. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t-

He awoke again. He was screaming.

This time he managed to keep his head above the sand. He looked around for what had struck him, but whatever it was, it was already lost. He had probably bled out over the sand, but any trace of that was long gone, too. The sand was cold beneath his hands, disturbingly cold, like sand at night even though it was midday. Nicolo shoved himself to his feet, bracing against the vicious winds. It like night all around him. Like one of those fabled days when the sun disappeared in shadow, covered by the hand of God.

Which direction had he been facing? Nicolo cursed as he faced forward, the direction he had been lying in. If he was struck from this side… he would have fallen this way… It was impossible to guess. It was going to be a matter of elimination, now. He would just have to pick a direction and set off into it and hope he ran into a familiar landmark eventually that he could use to orient himself.

By some miracle—perhaps divine, perhaps sheer luck, Nicolo still hadn’t sorted that out for himself—his feet landed on the path within twenty more paces. He looked to his right, then his left. No way to tell. Sending up a prayer, Nicolo struck off to the right. He would know soon enough, one way or another. Out of not optimism but defiance Nicolo counted his steps on the path, just in case.

He _had_ picked the right direction. Three hundred paces and his and Yusuf’s house came into view, when he was mere feet from it. Nicolo ran, throwing himself into their front door.

The wind fell away to nothing. The howling a dull roar instead of a scream. Nicolo stood, head titled back, as he sucked a lungful of clean air for the first time in what felt like hours.

The children. Nicolo scrambled, grabbing for their supplies. Rope, rope, and more rope. Nicolo grabbed a pack and slung it over his chest, piling all the rope they had into it. He tied one end securely around their hearth in the center of their home, then ran back out into the storm without another shameful moment’s rest.

It was easier, this time. Not because the storm was any less, but because Nicolo had a plan, a destination, and the lifeline of the rope in his hands. He had to stop to tie off one rope to another every time one of his lines ran out, but nimble fingers made quick work of that, thanks to long nights of Yusuf teaching him sailors knots while they exchanged stories from their childhoods in each other’s languages, for practice.

Yusuf was a mere shadow against the sand dune, nearly enveloped by it. Nicolo couldn’t see the children at all when he first approached, and he feared the worst. But Yusuf gestured frantically to him, and once Nicolo was at his side, produced the little girl from beneath his robes.

“ _Take her_.”

Nicolo grabbed the little girl, tucked her under his robe. Yusuf did the same to the little boy, though his eyes were fixed on Nicolo’s. He hesitated, reached for Nicolo. Touched at his headdress. Nicolo realized it must be stained with blood. He hadn’t even looked.

Nicolo shook his head. Later. They would have the chance to talk about it later. And they would. But now wasn’t the time.

Yusuf nodded. Nicolo grabbed the rope and passed it back to Yusuf. Hand over hand, they started the tedious job of pulling themselves back to their home, by the way forged by Nicolo.

Somehow, they made it. Somehow, the children, resilient in the way only children could be, were snacking on dried dates under their kitchen table within five minutes of Nicolo and Yusuf depositing them from under their robes. Nicolo hammered another board over a window in a futile attempt to keep the sand out of their now sand-logged home.

“Are you alright?” Yusuf asked. He’d come up behind him, was touching at Nicolo’s hair. Was it stained with blood? Maybe. Nicolo would worry about washing it later.

“I am fine.” He finished nailing the board in place before turning into Yusuf’s arms. Nicolo nodded at the children. “I am more than fine.”

“Nicolo…” Yusuf chided.

“No.” Nicolo shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Not if they are safe.”

Yusuf’s mouth twisted like he wanted to argue, but of course he couldn’t. He would have done the same, and had. Yusuf satisfied himself bussing a kiss to Nicolo’s cheek, which Nicolo returned. Then they both went back to the work of tending to their home while the storm continued to rage outside.

At sunset the storm ended just as quickly as it had begun. The dust still hung in the air, making the sunset more brilliantly red than Nicolo had ever seen it. But the raging wind was gone, and the sky had lightened enough to see the sun, even as it disappeared over the horizon. They brought the children outside with them, who ran about and marveled at the changed landscape. All around them their neighbors were doing the same: peaking their heads out from their homes and taking in the damage from the storm.

The older girl was able to lead Yusuf and Nicolo to her home, little brother firmly in hand down the entire sand-soaked path. When they were still a hundred yards down the road the front door to their home flung open and a man and woman rushed out. The girl laughed, yanking at her brother to try and get him to hurry his chubby little legs along, still fat with babes’ milk.

“Amira! Syed!” Their parents called out to them. They scooped them up in an instant, mother clutching her son, father his daughter, kisses and tears and laughter spread all around.

Nicolo hung back, knowing he looked a stranger, wanting to leave it to Yusuf. But of course Yusuf pulled him along, like the little girl pulling her brother, and Nicolo reluctantly allowed himself to be brought before the husband and wife clinging to their children.

“ _Thank you,_ ” the mother told them, happy tears streaming down her cheeks. “We thought we lost them. The storm came so fast, they were out playing-”

“How can we repay you?” the father asked them. Yusuf and Nicolo held their hands up in mirror-identical images of refusal.

“Please, no. My Nicolo was caught out in the storm and found them. He brought them back with him.”

“Amira kept them both safe,” Nicolo pointed out, with a nod to the little girl. “She took cover beneath a sand dune until we were able to get to them. She saved herself and her brother.”

“Praise Allah,” the mother whispered, clutching her baby boy to her cheek. The father bounced Amira on his arm, peppering kisses to her hair.

“My daughter,” he said, and then was overcome with emotion and could say no more.

That night the skies were still dark with sand, kicked up so high the stars were muted, the moon a dim sliver. Still, the world felt made new, perhaps because for Nicolo it was, in their way.

They shook themselves out of their sand-clogged clothes, brushing it from their hair, Yusuf’s beard, their skin. Like water, rough pat-downs turned to caresses, turned to groping, turned back rough again, but this time with passion, with fear, with need. Yusuf’s grip on Nicolo was painful, but Nicolo took it, pulled Yusuf harder against him, begged him with his body to hold him tight, to reassure him that he was alive, they were alive, they were together, together, always together.

Yusuf took Nicolo on the floor of their home, both of them too desperate to cross the small distance to their bedroom. Afterwards they lay there on the stone floors, panting, cold in the desert night air, chaffed from the sand and slowly healing.

“I lost my scrolls,” Nicolo said.

Yusuf’s head lolled to the side to examine him curiously.

“What?”

Nicolo turned to examine Yusuf right back. He frowned, genuine regret pitting in his gut now that the adrenaline of the storm and the children and death and life were all past him. “Abul lent me the _Timaeus_. I was heading to the library to return them and discuss them with him. I… they’re lost. In the storm, somewhere.”

“When you died.”

“Yusuf, Yusuf,” Nicolo sighed. He reached up and stroked a hand down Yusuf’s cheek. Yusuf turned into it, eyes fluttering shut at the touch. A tear tracked down that selfsame cheek, wiped away in an instant.

“One day you might not come back,” Yusuf reminded him. As if Nicolo needed reminding. Yusuf’s eyes opened, met Nicolo’s in the dim light of their home. “Please, Nicolo. Do not die without me.”

“Next time you’ll come with me, then,” Nicolo suggested dryly. “Then we can both die. Along with the children.”

“Nicolo-”

“Mi amor: it was necessary. I do not seek death out, not ever: not with you in my life and so much left undone. But I will not let fear of it keep me from my duty. If it is my life or a child’s-”

“-every time,” Yusuf agreed. Leaning forward he drew Nicolo into a sweet, tender kiss. “I know, Nicolo. It is why my heart sings for yours. Your compassion and bravery awe me every day.”

“I need to bake Abul something to apologize for losing the scrolls,” Nicolo fretted.

“I’m sure they’re still out there,” Yusuf assured him. He patted at Nicolo’s naked thigh. “I’ll help you look in the morning, yes?”

Nicolo despaired at finding the scrolls after today—they were probably a hundred miles away, torn to shreds, and buried beneath three tons of desert sand. But he didn’t protest Yusuf’s optimism, because of course that’s what Yusuf was there for, to be his optimist in the wilderness when Nicolo could see no path out.

“How is Abul?” Yusuf asked. “You know I think he has taken a fancy to you.”

Nicolo snorted, staring at the ceiling of their home.

“Ah, well. I suppose you Arab men all have excellent taste.”

Yusuf tsked in affront. “Abul is _Persian_. I am Maghreb. It is like you don’t know me at all.”

“Mmm, I know you,” Nicolo hummed, turning so he could trail a hand down Yusuf’s thigh. Yusuf lifted his hips eagerly.

“Would you chance to _know_ me now?” he practically begged. Nicolo snickered and attended to him, and let himself be attended to.

After that time they managed to find their way to their bed, sighing heavily as they shook sand out of their linens and swept the floors by candlelight. But eventually their bedroom was livable, at least for the night, and they crawled into bed naked together.

“Abul invited you to the next meeting of the Brethren,” Nicolo told Yusuf, which he’d been meaning to do for days and kept forgetting. “I told him you weren’t interested, but…”

Yusuf levered himself up on one elbow, supporting his head. “What? I’m interested! I would go to your Islamic cult meeting.”

“It’s not a _cult_ ,” Nicolo sighed.

“You called your Gnostics a ‘cult.’”

“Well your Brethren of Purity are much more… orderly than my Gnostics.”

Yusuf giggled at that, pleased. Nicolo smiled ruefully and continued on.

“I think this month’s topic is something mathematical. The number four, or perhaps the cosmic order-”

Yusuf lowered himself back to their straw mattress with a laugh. “Unless they are telling me how to sail across the Mediterranean more easily or build a clock, they can keep their magical numbers and singing cosmos.”

“It’s not _un_ reasonable,” Nicolo said with a frown. “There is an order than keeps coming up. The Gnostics were less… rigorous about it, but these patterns, they are not just in human histories, but in nature, in science.”

“In nature as _we_ understand it, in science as _we_ have invented it-”

“We are not _inventing_ science, we are _discovering_ , _unearthing_ orders which have existed all this time, we just remained blind to the processes.”

“You just like your numbers because they don’t change. You don’t have to keep learning new ones wherever you go.”

“There are different _types_ of numbers, you know. They _do_ change: depending on what you are working with. There are counting numbers and there are magnitudes. Magnitudes can be incommensurable, whereas arithmetic numerals cannot.”

Beside him, Yusuf started to mock-snore, loudly. Nicolo smacked at his thighs, his stomach, until Yusuf was giggling and begging for mercy.

“Your Brethren have so much more than the Gnostics did. Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle—even if his Greek is nigh-inscrutable—and Ibn-Sina, Al-Ghazali… the Gnostics had no concept of these, and…”

“Do they help you, though?” Yusuf asked. “Your cultists: they had secret scriptures by your holy men and women. Do _Ikhw_ _ā_ _n Al-_ _Ṣ_ _af_ _ā_ have answers like your cultists did? Answers to the same questions?”

Nicolo stared at their ceiling, turning Yusuf’s point over in his head. He wanted to say _yes, yes: of course it is the same question._ But… why? Why did he feel that? Why would knowledge of mathematics and the cosmos, or even the World Soul and the demiurge answer Nicolo’s most important and only question: why? Why them, why this? What to do, to what purpose, and when would it end?

“Perhaps that is the next question I must ask,” Nicolo finally replied. “I… it is not divine revelation, but some days, I feel…” he pressed a hand to his stomach. “It is all the same. An answer to one would be an answer to all. The secrets…” Nicolo struggled. He tried to put it into words, to grasp the concept with one hand, with both hands. But it slipped, it twisted, it disappeared inside of itself, through his head, beyond time and space, beyond reason or revelation. Nicolo sighed in frustration.

“I do not know,” he admitted. “I am sorry.”

Without hesitation Yusuf rolled over and pressed a kiss to Nicolo’s shoulder before settling wrapped around his side.

“I love you,” Yusuf promised. “We will find your scrolls tomorrow. And maybe I will go with you to your secret meeting this month. Even if only to keep Abul from stealing you away from me.”

Nicolo had to laugh at that, and was able to sleep with his heart light and mind clear.

* * *

Yusuf was laughing into his drink, laughing so hard he choked and it sprayed every which way. Nicolo laughed with him as he patted him on the back as Yusuf coughed through clearing his lungs.

Rabbi Yonatan was waving his hands around through his own laughter and tears, trying to bring attention back to himself. “No, no! You-” a heavy burst of laughter, while Yusuf clutched Nicolo’s arm and giggled some more. Yonatan tried again. “Not fair! It is not _meant_ that way, you cannot just-”

Yusuf gestured expansively, poking his mug at Yonatan. “A cosmic rattle? Why, is that offensive?”

Yonatan slapped his hand down on the table, laughing uproariously. “You, _you_ of all sorts, I would expect a Moslem to understand! Are you not people of the book as well?”

Yusuf nodded mock seriously, eyebrows shooting up into his curly locks that fell so beautifully over his face. “Oh, yes. Many books, in fact. But we also have children’s toys. Balls, blocks, rattles. I think this is where I’ve seen your God before, more so than in our books-”

“It’s _not_ G-d,” Yonatan insisted. “It is a _diagram_ that helps make sense of a grand cosmic order, both reproducing how the universe came into being while also serving as a road map to understanding good and evil-”

“But the beginning of the universe _is_ a sphere on the tree of life,” Nicolo interrupted him. He gestured, pinching his fingers together in an ‘o’ and raising it above his head. “The first sphere. So how does the tree reproduce how the universe began while also having that be only one part of it?”

Yonatan shook his head, curls from the sides of his head bobbing to and fro in a manner that was almost reminiscent of how Yusuf’s hair moved. “Your thinking is constrained to the earthly. Something can as a whole be represented while also being a single part of the representation.”

Nicolo tried to picture this. His mind produced an image of a sphere, which turned into a hole, sucking itself into itself, looping over and over again. He shook his head.

“You speak nonsense.”

“Only because you are thinking like a Christian!” Yonatan chided. He waved a hand at Yusuf. “No offense.”

Yusuf giggled and shook his head. “Oh, none taken, most certainly. It is Nicolo who needs to understand. I am happy merely to keep company by his side on this journey.”

“But how then is _time_ placed _after_ the creation of the universe,” Nicolo continued, pressing the point. He gestured again, this time placing his left hand as an “o” beneath his right. “You have the beginning of everything. And _then_ you have the beginning of time. But, how can there _be_ a _then_ , if there is not yet _time_? Do all things before time occur simultaneously? Do they occur both before and after each other…” the sphere sucking into itself appeared again in Nicolo’s mind’s eye.

“Well of course time had to come after the creation of the universe. Otherwise how could time be if there was nothing?”

“How could something _come to be_ if there was no _time_?!” Nicolo shouted. Yusuf laughed and dragged at his arm, and Nicolo realized he was standing, jumped up from his bench in the tavern they were drinking in. Shamefacedly he let Yusuf drag him back down to sit pressed up by his side. Yonatan was wagging his finger at Nicolo.

“You Christians. So _sensitive_ about your religion. Next thing you know, he’ll be putting the thumbscrews to me, eh?” Yonatan joked with Yusuf.

“ _Madre de Dio_ ,” Nicolo murmured, crossing himself.

Yusuf’s smile was _too_ big, and Nicolo should have seen it coming before he leaned across the table and mock-whispered to Yonatan: “Don’t be fooled by those big blue eyes: he puts the screws to infidels just about every night.” He glanced over at Nicolo and shrugged. “Or, at least: one _particular_ infidel.”

Nicolo sighed and buried his face in his ale. _Madre de Dio_.

As they walked home together that evening—after making sure Yonatan had imbibed little enough that he, too, would be able to walk safely home—Yusuf laughed into the cool night air and wrapped his arm around Nicolo’s shoulders.

“You know, I think you’ve found your people,” Yusuf pointed out. “These rabbis, they like to drink and argue. You are well at home amongst them.”

“Genovese like to drink and argue, this is not exclusive to Jews,” Nicolo reminded him. Yusuf made a long noise of disbelief, which he received an elbow to the side for.

“These Rabbis though: you like them better than your Gnostics. They think more, yes. More up here-” Yusuf pressed his index finger to Nicolo’s temple, “-than down here,” he laid his hand over Nicolo’s breast.

Nicolo sighed and tugged at him, rearranging their limbs until Yusuf’s hand was folded into his and they were walking hand-in-hand down the road from the local _taberna_.

Yusuf’s words _had_ struck upon something, joking as they were. The Jews had a tradition of argument, of figuring out the truth by discussion. Enlightenment through dialectic, rather than revelation. It was not upon God (or the Holy Spirit) to reveal His will to His people, but rather upon His people to discern His will for themselves. And, if necessary, discern what they _thought_ His will _ought_ to be—something Nicolo could never imagine the Gnostics, or any Christians, accepting as anything other than blasphemy.

Why, just the other day, Yonatan tried to argue with Nicolo that Abraham had done the _wrong thing_ , trying to sacrifice his son Isaac to the Lord. That Abraham had _failed_ a test by _obeying God’s will_! Nicolo couldn’t _possibly_ imagine his Church ever arguing such a thing.

“Still, I worry…” Nicolo stopped. Hummed.

Yusuf nudged his shoulder into his. “What? Come now, love.”

It still sent a thrill through Nicolo, when Yusuf named him by epithet. He’d only started this past decade, sometime when they were amongst his people in Basra. While Nicolo had been busy with the Ikhwan al-Safa’, Yusuf had time to indulge in one of his first loves, poetry, and now the words which were already abundant seemed to flow ever more fluidly from his artful lips. Never let it be said their time in Basra yielded nothing. Even if there were no answers for Nicolo, it gave them this.

“Nicolo?”

Nicolo shook himself from his reverie.

“It’s a continuum,” he said with a frown. “The Gnostics, all heart and no head. The Brethren of Purity were more head, but still heart. These Jews: I worry they go too far. All head, no heart.”

“Ah, so then my people are right, is what you’re saying?” Yusuf crowed. “Mother will be so pleased. Let’s get an imam and get you converted-”

Nicolo chuckled, and Yusuf crowed even more, managing to extract laughter from him when Nicolo was so determined to be serious and depressed over his decades-long search for answers.

“Not right, but perhaps, less wrong,” Nicolo granted him. Yusuf cheered and swooped in to press a wet kiss to Nicolo’s cheek. “The Gnostics, they were waiting for revelations from the Holy Spirit. But if you do not receive such a revelation, will you never know? And even if you do receive a revelation: how to verify its truth? How to know it was not a dream, or your own mind desperately serving up answers, or, most disturbing, your mind gone mad?”

“An ancient problem,” Yusuf agreed. “How to verify that we are not dreaming right now?”

“But, of course, the answer to that is simple: verification through others. Which…” Nicolo pouted, “…is impossible with personal revelation.”

“But the Jews…” Yusuf prompted.

“The Jews think they can figure it all out themselves!” Nicolo huffed. He gestured emphatically with his free hand. “They argue and they debate, they read their texts, sure, but so much of their reading is other Jews, other Rabbis, arguing, debating! There is _no_ divine revelation, it seems, but merely Jews arguing with other Jews!”

Yusuf laughed. “You wanted to verify with others,” he reminded Nicolo, who growled in frustration.

“Yes, but verification of something divine! It cannot be from the minds of humans, that… it can’t…”

Their feet stuttered to a stop—which one of them decided to do this, Nicolo couldn’t know. Yusuf turned to stand before Nicolo in the path, gathering his hands in his own.

“Nicolo, Nicolo, mi amor, calm yourself,” he hushed, rubbing his hands over Nicolo’s. Nicolo tsked.

“I _am_ calm.”

“Is there no benefit to spending time with the Jews?” Yusuf asked.

Nicolo shook his head. “Of course there is. They are the originator of _both_ our religions. Their scriptural understanding spans millennia before ours. They have records that stretch back that fair; they have a communion of minds since the beginning of history working to divine the will of God.”

Yusuf turned to fall back at Nicolo’s side as they continued back down the path to their home.

“You see? What else?”

“They have so many more undying in their Torah than we have in the Bible,” Nicolo continued. Yusuf’s hand was warm on his lower back as Nicolo gestured wildly as they walked. They could smell the sea from here, maybe even hear it, if they stilled and listened hard enough. The waves crashing upon the cliffs sprayed sea foam into the air for miles and on rough nights could be heard miles inland. And here they were not even a mile from shore. But they were heading back to their home, not to the seaside, though perhaps if Nicolo found he couldn’t sleep in his excitement he might head back this way, out to the cliffs. To stare at the expanse of stars above his head and beyond out across the sea, to think.

“You have mentioned,” Yusuf said, not as an admonishment, but rather, exactly the opposite: as an encouragement to tell him again.

“Not just Enoch and Elijah, but Serah, Hiram, Eliezer. It’s not just Jews either, but they have Ebed-Melech, the Ethiopian, or Bithiah, the daughter of Pharaoh. These might be people like us, Yusuf. These are not just their holy men and women, but historical figures, people not like them-”

“People who did good things for them, people who were blessed by their God, their prophets,” Yusuf gently reminded him. “The Ethiopian: he did some good to one of their Jews, yes?”

“Jeremiah. Yes,” Nicolo admitted.

“And Bithiah: she saved the great prophet Moses when he was a baby in a basket, and raised him alongside her own son, yes?”

Nicolo sighed and dropped his hands, shoulders slumping.

“I understand your point, but it is more-”

“It is more,” Yusuf agreed. His hand slid from its place at Nicolo’s back to his waist, pulling him into a hug. “But does it answer any of your questions? Does it satisfy you?”

Nicolo sighed. He leaned heavily against Yusuf, letting him steer them both forward to their little house by the sea.

“I worry I will never be satisfied,” Nicolo whispered. He shook his head even as he said it. No. That was despair. That was fear. He was not a man to give in so easily to the weakness of the mind.

Their home rose on the horizon before them. A little thing, not much land: enough for a chicken pen, some goats, two horses. Just enough for them and the few years they would spend here. Nicolo’s heart swelled to see it, even in the midst of his despair. Decades ago, when he was a young man, he would have never imagined such a place for himself. His future was the monastery, and then death on foreign sands.

A fit of passion, divine madness, even, overtook Nicolo then. He turned to Yusuf, grabbed his arms.

“Satisfy me?” he begged.

Yusuf’s teeth shown white in the light of the moon. “Oh, Nicolo: I can do this.”

Eight winters passed for them in the south of Spain—colder than either of them was used to after decades spent on the south side of the Mediterranean, but they managed to keep each other warm. And then, before the ninth winter could come upon them, Nicolo knew what he had to do next. Or, rather, he knew that he did not know.

They were eating a seafood _paella_ that Nicolo had spent most the day preparing while Yusuf was out conducting whatever business deals he liked to conduct to occupy his time. Nicolo thought maybe today it was about some illuminated manuscripts, or perhaps some luxury imports—textiles, maybe? Perhaps that wasn’t due in for another few weeks.

At any rate, Yusuf had entered their home and moaned, making a big show of being drawn into their kitchen by the aroma of the paella cooking on their stove.

“Nicolo, Nicolo,” Yusuf hummed into Nicolo’s ear, hugging him from behind. He pressed a thousand little kisses to Nicolo’s neck, their hips swaying in sync. “You are going to make me fat. A century of this and you’ll be rolling me alongside you as you search for your next wise man to interrogate.”

And although Yusuf didn’t know it, that was what decided it for Nicolo. That tonight, that now, he would have to have this discussion with Yusuf. There was no point putting it off any longer—even if they were immortal and had time to the end of the universe.

As Yusuf shoveled forkful after forkful of paella into his mouth, moaning and groaning his satisfaction all the while, Nicolo ate for show and then stopped. He drank a long draught of wine, then cleared his throat. Yusuf glanced up at him, not really pausing in his meal.

“I wanted to speak to you, Yusuf. To tell you…” Nicolo forced himself to look at him, his beautiful Yusuf, even as his eyes fought desperately to look anywhere else. “You do not have to stay with me.” Yusuf froze, fork halfway to his mouth. Nicolo forced himself to continue: “You could go and find Andromache and Quynh. Be with them. Or… go out on your own. Go where you want to go. Live where you wish to live. You do not have to follow me as I search for answers and refuse to be satisfied and move on, and on, and on. I…”

“Nicolo, stop, Nicolo…” Yusuf whispered. Nicolo shook his head.

“You should not follow me, like this. You do not have to.”

“I love you.”

“I do not know why,” Nicolo whispered. “I am useless. I am lost. I am search and seeking for answers and like a spoiled child I turn from every answer offered before me-”

“Stop this nonsense,” Yusuf ordered. Nicolo laughed.

“It is not nonsense. It is the truth.”

Yusuf’s fork hit his plate with a clatter. He gestured viciously towards Nicolo.

“Fine. Fine. You tell me. What did you do today? Tell me. Spare me no detail.”

Nicolo frowned at the change of subject. But Yusuf had pressed his palm to the table, elbow up, and was leaning forward intently. Somehow, Yusuf thought this was his answer. So Nicolo indulged him—as Yusuf had done for _him_ , these last decades.

“I woke up. With you. We awoke together, mostly. We laid together.” Nicolo shot a heated look at Yusuf from beneath his eyebrows. “Should I spare no detail here, or do you remember it well enough?”

Yusuf’s eyes roved down Nicolo’s face, his neck, his shoulders… but then he took hold of himself and smiled. “No. I remember. Except for those moments when memory fails me for I became insensate. But you may abridge that part of your retelling.”

“Well then. After, I went to the market before the library. I met with _Señora_ Barmina. She mentioned her daughter’s husband is misbehaving, again. I promised to stop in this afternoon during _siesta_ and speak with him.”

“And did you?”

“I did.”

“What did he say? What did you say?”

“I told him that if I ever got word that he was laying hands on his wife again, I would throw him from the cliffs and let him be dashed upon the rocks. And that if the rocks did not kill him, I would wait and watch as the sea creatures did the rest of the work.” Nicolo allowed himself the smallest smile at this, which Yusuf returned. But his dark eyes were still troubled, urging Nicolo to get on with his retelling. So he continued: “I also went around to both _taberna_ I know he is known to frequent and made a contract with the owners.”

“Did you?” Yusuf hummed.

“One hundred _maravedi_ now, to form the contract. For every time they cut off _Señor_ Castello, I pay the difference they would have made overserving him. They keep a running tab and I pay them monthly. If he causes any damages because of refusal of service, I will pay that as well.”

“Where did you get two hundred _maravedi_?” Yusuf mused. Nicolo snorted.

“We can afford it.”

“I never said we could not.” Yusuf leaned over the table, reaching one hand out. After a moment Nicolo returned the gesture, resting his hand in Yusuf’s. “That is a good thing you did,” Yusuf told him, giving his hand a squeeze.

“If it works. _Señor_ Castello might bring his ire at being underserved home to his wife. In which case my meddling will have made matters worse.”

“Why not kill him outright? Tomorrow morning, tonight. I could get my scimitar, we could go right now.”

Nicolo sighed. It would be easier, of course. And it wasn’t as though they hadn’t killed before. Nicolo had no such worries about breaking that commandment, and certainly not so justly. If God would bless him for killing infidels like his beautiful Yusuf, God would most certainly open the gates of heaven to a man who killed woman-beaters. “Because everyone deserves a chance. _Señor_ Castello is a slave to drink, and his weakness puts him and his wife in dire financial straits. Without the drink, he would not grow so violent; with extra money, they would both be under less stress. Perhaps…” Nicolo shook his head. “He may be an irredeemable lout. In which case, he has been told what will happen, and he can make that choice, freely. But with the drink, his choice is not free. I wonder, if we could help him, he might prove worthy of his wife. For it would be much easier for her if her husband could provide and treat her well than if she were widowed at such a young age.”

“You are a kind heart, habibta.”

“I just want to do what is right. As do you.”

Yusuf shrugged and did not press the issue. So Nicolo continued.

“But you were asking me to recite my day. After I spoke with _Señora_ Barmina I went to the library to meet with Rabbi-” But Yusuf shook his head.

“That’s enough. You’ve proven my point. Nicolo: how could I not love a man of your kindness, your compassion? Just this day you have tried to save a woman from her boorish husband. And not only that, but rather than take the easy path before you, you choose a path which, although much more treacherous, would save not only the wife from the husband, but the husband from _himself_. You, Nicolo.” Yusuf placed his other hand on top of Nicolo’s, rubbing at it. His molten brown eyes brimmed with unshed tears as they bore into Nicolo’s own. “You are the best man I’ve ever known. I thank Allah every day that He brought me to you, and in more generosity than any man deserves, He has given us more days together than I could have ever dared ask for. Nicolo: I would happily spend my days following you across this earth, until the Day of Judgement, if that is how you wish to spend your days.”

“Yusuf-”

“No.” Yusuf stood up, crossed around the table. Nicolo couldn’t do more than just tilt his head back as Yusuf climbed into Nicolo’s lap, pressed them back against the pillows. Yusuf stroked his hands over Nicolo’s hair, pushing it away from his eyes as he cupped his face in his hands. He shook his head. “Do not say such things about yourself, my love, my soul, my heart. How could you ever think you burden me? That I am not here because I will it? Your body is my body, your soul is my soul. If your mind is burdened then _my_ mind is burdened, and my feet walk with your feet until both our minds are put to ease.”

“But you have your answers,” Nicolo insisted, trying just one more time. “You said, decades ago: Allahu Akbar.”

“Allahu Akbar,” Yusuf agreed. He pressed a lingering kissing to Nicolo’s forehead before pulling back to meet his eyes again. “Nicolo: every day, _you_ do the work of God’s greatness on Earth, because every day you do _good_. How could I ever want to be somewhere other than basking in the reflected glow of divine goodness made manifest?”

“ _That_ is blasphemous,” Nicolo protested, though now it was a token. Yusuf, sensing this, smiled as he leaned in for a kiss.

“Allahu Akbar: He understands what is in my heart.”

Nicolo kissed Yusuf, his lips soft and wet, his tongue sliding against Nicolo’s.

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Nicolo broke the kiss to rejoin.

“These insults, these barbs,” Yusuf whined, even as he kissed Nicolo again. “I endure such brutality,” he complained into another kiss. “It’s a wonder I stay around…”

The only response to that, of course, was to climb on top of Yusuf and show him exactly how Nicolo’s mouth was capable of kindness and pleasure as much as it was brutality. And Yusuf, of course, insisted on a demonstration in kind.

* * *

The lake water was beautifully clear, crystal blue beneath an equally cerulean sky. Quynh laughed and splashed with Yusuf, challenging him to swimming contests of _this_ distance, to _that_ rock, to _this_ depth. Andromache floated on her back, eyes closed against the glare of the Genovese sun. Nicolo was treading water, smiling as he watched Yusuf play with Quynh, debating when his lover’s honor would be impugned enough that he would require Nicolo to join in and help him earn it back.

“Have you thought about where you’re heading to next?” Andromache asked without opening her eyes.

“Not precisely,” Nicolo replied.

“My people call themselves something else these days,” Andromache mused. “Polovtsians. Maybe they have the answers you seek.”

“Your people worshipped you as a god,” Nicolo reminded her.

“Yes.”

Nicolo sank until only his head remained above water. “Then I do not think it is to them I will go for answers of theology.”

Andromache splashed some water at him as Nicolo ducked out of the way, giggling at his oh-so-clever barb.

“You could stay with us,” Andromache offered, although she never need to. The offer was always extended, over the decades they’d kept in touch by letter. Nicolo swam back her way, watching as Quynh dunked Yusuf beneath _lago di_ Garda’ _s_ waters. Yusuf came up yelling and spluttering as Quynh screamed gaily before taking off in the other direction.

“I do not think… just yet,” Nicolo mused. “I do not have satisfaction.”

“You won’t,” Andromache told him. “Not ever.” Nicolo shrugged and let himself sink down completely under the water, before coming up and shaking his head out like a dog. The water was so cool and refreshing on his skin. The sun was so warm. It was a perfect day. A blessed day.

“Maybe,” he agreed. “But there is time yet to find out.”

Andromache tilted her head, opening one eye to squint over at Nicolo. Nicolo chuckled to himself at her examination and smoothed his wet hair back from his face. Andromache smiled back.

“You look good. Better than the last time I saw you. So whatever you’re doing: keep doing it. Even if you’re not getting your ‘satisfaction.’”

“What’s this?” Yusuf panted, splashing over. Quynh was following in his wake, path set on Andromache. At the last minute Andromache flipped over, slipping down beneath the waters just before Quynh could grab her. Quynh looked around, splashing to keep afloat, until suddenly Andromache burst to the surface directly beneath her, taking Quynh up onto her shoulders. Quynh screamed, and laughed, clinging to Andromache’s body as she was lifted above the waves. Yusuf laughed at them and shook his head before turning to Nicolo. “I heard Andromache say you were unsatisfied?”

“Better do something about that, Yusuf,” Quynh teased.

“I thought I _was_ ,” Yusuf pouted as he paddled over to close the gap between himself and Nicolo. Of course, Nicolo opened his arms to Yusuf, letting Yusuf slot their chests together as their legs tangled, kicking lightly to keep them both afloat. “ _Mi amor_ , are you unsatisfied? Allow me to rectify this tonight. And this evening. And this afternoon…”

Nicolo laughed and leaned in to plant a wet kiss to Yusuf’s lips. “ _Tesoro_ , _piacere_. You never leave me unsatisfied.” He glanced over at Quynh. “Sore, perhaps. Exhausted, most times. Injured: only once. Or twice.” He looked back to Yusuf with a frown. “Or was it a half-dozen-”

“ _Ya amar_ , please, stop, my heart cannot take such slander,” Yusuf moaned. Nicolo kissed his apology into Yusuf’s mouth, and that seemed to pacify him well enough, for now.

“Give them time, Andromache,” Quynh said. “They are still young and in love. They think they only need each other.”

Nicolo smirked and said nothing. Mostly because, well, he could hardly contradict her. At the same time, there _was_ something he needed, but it wasn’t something the company of more undying could fulfill.

“Are you planning our next journey already?” Yusuf asked, with just a hint of displeasure in his voice. Nicolo shook his head.

“No. Not yet. You will know first, _mi amor_ , when it is time for my journey to continue.”

“I know where you should go,” Quynh sing-songed. “But you might be too _Christian_ to listen.”

Yusuf laughed, and Nicolo knocked their heads together in petty retribution.

“I am a humble student of the world,” Nicolo promised Quynh. “Please. Tell us where I would never know to go.” He looked to Yusuf and shrugged. “For we have exhausted the world as we know it.”

Quynh grinned, scrunching herself in half so she should rest her head on top of Andromache’s from her perch. “There is so _much_ world out there, young ones. You have only just _begun_.”


End file.
